le general would spin in his grave......

The drills’ commander, Nicolas Le Nen, called the war games the return of major military operations to French territory.

More than 7,000 servicemen are currently taking part in France’s biggest military exercise in decades, which is dubbed Orion 23 and is scheduled to be wrapped up in May.

Apart from French soldiers, servicemen from the US, the UK and Spain are involved in the drills that will simulate parachute operations and amphibious landings along the Mediterranean coast.

The operations, which are currently in full swing across the Occitanie region in France, will then move to the Atlantic coast regions of Nouvelle Aquitaine and Brittany. The drills consist of four stages, with the most important Phase 4 expected to see a major air-land "confrontation" between France and a simulated enemy.

According to a French newspaper, the country’s army has mobilized the Charles-de-Gaulle aircraft carrier and more than a thousand land and sea vehicles for the "unprecedented large-scale military simulation."

Another French newspaper cited an unnamed military source as saying that Orion 23’s goal is to "show France’s ability to be the first to enter a theatre of operations, but also to lead an international coalition."

Exercise commander Nicolas Le Nen, for his part, described the drills as "the return of big operations on French soil."

France to Beef Up Its Defense Budget

These war games come amid France’s ever-increasing effort to build up its military might and Paris' bellicose rhetoric toward Moscow, which continues its special military operation in Ukraine.

In late January, French President Emmanuel Macron detailed plans for a major boost to the country’s armed forces, which he said is needed to meet modern threats, naming Russia as a primary area of focus for Paris.

According to Macron, the next seven-year budget would increase to €413 billion ($435 billion), up from €295 billion ($311 billion). Meeting soldiers at Mont-de-Marsan airbase at the time, Macron said that first and foremost, France should repair and restock its armed forces, and then transform them.

The French president admitted that there were no more post-Cold War "peace dividends" following Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, which is why he said the goal is to renew a French military that should protect the country’s freedom, security, prosperity and place in the world.

https://sputniknews.com/20230227/frances-unprecedented-war-games-underway-as-paris-builds-up-military-might-1107838830.html

peace protests.....

A wave of anti-war protests has swept through Europe last weekend. Thousands of demonstrators in Germany, France and Italy rallied against arms supplies to Ukraine, warning that the NATO-fanned military escalation is fraught with the risk of sparking World War III.

"Sentiments in European societies about the conflict in Ukraine should be measured in terms of penetration of cognitive warfare," Paolo Raffone, a strategic analyst and director of the CIPI Foundation in Brussels, told Sputnik. "The powerful US machine has compacted two-thirds of the sentiment on the idea that the war will end only with a Ukrainian victory."

"This has been possible with the co-opted engagement of the EU leaders, first of all [EC President] Ursula von der Leyen, and NATO, who are acting like the madrasa in a caravanserai. The consequence is also a wide anti-Russian sentiment powerfully sustained by the UK, Poland and Ukrainian leaders and media. I stress that it is not even an autonomous perception of the Europeans but a sheer manipulation of their cognitive capacities," Raffone continued.

Despite most of the EU establishment publicly advocating continuous military support to Kiev, Europeans are increasingly concerned that the conflict could spill over to the Old Continent and express dissatisfaction with anti-Russia sanctions which backfired across the bloc.

https://sputniknews.com/20230227/diplomacy-instead-of-arming-ukraine-how-peace-movement-is-scaling-up-in-europe-1107850285.html

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

By Gus Leonisky at 28 Feb 2023 - 5:41am
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pension protests.....

rench unions vowed to bring the country to a standstill on March 7 as strikes over President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform gain momentum across the country. Even though the Elyse Palace earlier insisted that raising the retirement age to 64 by 2030 is "non-negotiable," protesters appear to be willing to prove to the contrary.

"The current and probably future strikes are particularly significant because of the support they enjoy in public opinion, but also because of the unity between the different trade union organizations," Jacques Sapir, director of studies at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris and head of the Centre d'Étude des Modes d'Industrialisation (CEMI), told Sputnik.

"This point is particularly important. Even unions with a reputation for being 'reformist', and which had not taken part in the previous mobilizations against the pension reform, have joined – and sometimes even been at the initiative – of today’s movement," he continued.

Why Macron's Pensions Reform is a Powder Keg

Macron came up with the pension reform in 2017 when he was first elected. However, the French government failed to build consensus over the plan which saw the nation strike in December 2019 to reject it.

Over 30 unions launched industrial action and demonstrations in what turned into the longest period of strikes in the country since the uprising of May 1968. The protesters wanted the Macron government to throw out a plan to replace France's 42 separate pension regimes with a universal points-based system that would make the official retirement age of 62 obligatory for all workers and envisage it being raised to 64 . The COVID pandemic prompted Macron to shelve the reform in 2020.

https://sputniknews.com/20230307/french-stand-with-pension-strikers-as-prices-soar-and-energy-bills-bite-1108155811.html

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FOR MACRON, ONE NEEDS TO LOWER THE RETIREMENT AGE TO 45.3 (HE'S 45).....

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

By Gus Leonisky at 8 Mar 2023 - 8:29am
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